Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A close-fitting jacket, with or without sleeves, worn by European men between the 15th and 17th centuries.
- n. A pair of similar or identical things.
- n. A member of such a pair.
- n. Physics A multiplet with two members.
- n. Linguistics One of two words derived from the same historical source by different routes of transmission, such as skirt from Scandinavian and shirt from English.
- n. An imitation gem composed of two parts, as of an inferior stone layered beneath a precious gem.
- n. Games A throw of two dice in which the same number of dots appears on the upper face of each.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One of a pair of like things; a duplicate: in most uses commonly in the plural.
- n. Specifically— In typography, an unintentional duplication of a word, phrase, passage, etc. Also double.
- n. In philology, a duplicate form of word; one of two (or, by extension, three or more) words originally the same, but having come to differ in form, and usually more or less in meaning. Doublets are very common in English. They usually consist of an older and a later form, the older being generally descended and the later directly borrowed from the same original (as benison, benediction; malison, malediction, etc.), or two accidental variations of one original, sometimes slightly discriminated (as alarm, alarum, etc.), or of a standard literary and a dialectal form (as church, kirk; lord, laird, etc.). See dimorphism, 5.
- n. In heraldry, a chevron-shaped bearing which issues from either side of the field, and reaches nearly to the opposite side without touching it.
- n. One of a pair of dice turned up in throwing when they both present the same number of spots: usually in the plural: as, to throw doublets.
- n. Something formed by a union of two like things; a duplicate combination. Specifically— A counterfeit gem composed of two pieces of crystal with a layer of color between them, giving the effect of a genuine colored stone.
- n. In optics, a combination of two simple lenses, with the object of diminishing the chromatic and spherical aberration: in the former use called specifically an achromatic doublet. The Wollaston doublet (see the extract) consists of two plano-convex lenses placed a short distance apart in the eyepiece of a microscope.
- n. plural A game with dice upon tables, somewhat resembling backgammon.
- n. An outer body-garment such as was worn by men from about the end of the fifteenth until about the middle of the seventeenth century. Originally it had short skirts, and was girded round the body with a belt of leather or similar material. Later it was cut and adjusted with great care, and even Stuffed or bombasted into an exact shape. At this period it sometimes had skirts, but was more often made without them. Throughout the sixteenth century the doublet usually had sleeves; under the reign of Charles I. of England it became universally an undergarment, being made without sleeves, and was thus the prototype of the modern waistcoat. So long as doublets were a common garment for men, they were frequently imitated in the fashions of feminine dress: thus, a similar body-garment for women was worn about 1580, and again in the reign of Charles II. of England, corresponding nearly to the modern sack, having sleeves and short skirts.
- n. In organ-building, a two-feet stop, or fifteenth. See stop, 6.
Wiktionary
- n. a man’s close-fitting jacket, with or without sleeves. Men in Europe wore doublets from the 1400s to the 1600s.
- n. a pair of two similar or equal things; couple.
- n. linguistics one of two or more different words in a language derived from the same origin but coming by different routes (e.g., toucher and toquer in French or yard and garden in English).
- n. literature In textual criticism, two different narrative accounts of the same actual event.
- n. An imitation gem made of two pieces of glass or crystal with a layer of color between them.
- n. printing, US A word or phrase set a second time by mistake.
- n. quantum mechanics A quantum state of a system with a spin of 1/2, such that there are two allowed values of the spin component, -1/2 and +1/2.
- n. computing A word (or rather, a halfword) consisting of two bytes
- n. botany A very small flowering plant, Dimeresia howellii
- n. A word ladder puzzle.
- n. An arrangement of two lenses for a microscope, designed to correct spherical aberration and chromatic dispersion, thus rendering the image of an object more clear and distinct.
- n. Either of two dice, each of which, when thrown, has the same number of spots on the face lying uppermost.
- n. uncountable A game somewhat like backgammon.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Two of the same kind; a pair; a couple.
- n. (Print.) A word or words unintentionally doubled or set up a second time.
- n. A close-fitting garment for men, covering the body from the neck to the waist or a little below. It was worn in Western Europe from the 15th to the 17th century.
- n. (Lapidary Work) A counterfeit gem, composed of two pieces of crystal, with a color them, and thus giving the appearance of a naturally colored gem. Also, a piece of paste or glass covered by a veneer of real stone.
- n. (Opt.) An arrangement of two lenses for a microscope, designed to correct spherical aberration and chromatic dispersion, thus rendering the image of an object more clear and distinct.
- n. Two dice, each of which, when thrown, has the same number of spots on the face lying uppermost.
- n. A game somewhat like backgammon.
- n. One of two or more words in the same language derived by different courses from the same original from
WordNet 3.0
- n. a man's close-fitting jacket; worn during the Renaissance
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French, diminutive of double, double; see double. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Here Pons paused to hold up to scorn my new scarlet satin doublet — a wondrous thing of which I had been extravagant.”
“Oh, such a slight deflection, a matter of inches, just barely sufficient to send his point past me so that it pierced a fold of my satin doublet in passing.”
“After putting on his crimson satin doublet and his long robe, not forgetting his black silk coif, he took leave of his wife, who was still in bed, and assured her that every evening he would come and sup with her, but that she must not expect him at dinner.”
“That," said Henry, "is what they call a doublet, and I should say that it is the finest one belonging to Captain Alvarez.”
The Free Rangers A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi
“He was all in green velvet, and every button of his doublet was a brilliant of price; and that gay raiment by its incongruity seemed to heighten the tragedy of the moment.”
“The lower part of the doublet is a skirt falling just above the knees.”
“Certain advantages were reserved to the banker: -- if he drew a doublet, that is, two equal cards, he won half of the stakes upon the card which equalled the doublet; if he drew for the players the last card of the pack, he was exempt from doubling the stakes deposited on that card.”
“As to our poverty, friend," replied Richie, "that is as Heaven pleases; but touching our falset, I'll prove to you that a Scotsman bears as leal and true a heart to his friend as ever beat in English doublet.”
“Broadly defined, a doublet is a pair of cognate words, almost always of Latin or Greco-Latin origin, of which one (here always placed second) retains a form close to the source, while the other has diverged by having passed through Old and Middle French and thence into Middle and Modern English -- though French is occasionally by-passed.”
“This is a high quality white opal doublet which is much more resilient to heat, scratch and wear.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘doublet’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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Words from the History of Norman & An...
leguminous, pursuant, frankalmoign, screed, codex, doublet, chattel, hauberk, scutage, fyrd, pallium, danegeld and 27 more...
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•Open List: Two for One
Phrases using the word "double." No doubles allowed. ;-)
double over, double up, doubled fists, double blanket, double room, double bed, double time, double sink, double-time, double scotch, double back, on the double and 87 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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A Song of Ice and Fire
Vocabulary from the epic fantasy series by George R. R. Martin!
destrier, wroth, garron, portcullis, craven, lickspittle, palfrey, ermine, surcoat, brigandine, doublet, deign and 7 more...
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Most Obscure Words
acatalectic, acosmism, acuate, acuminate, adscititious, adytum, akratisma, alieniloquy, allelomorph, allochiria, allodium, alnage and 620 more...
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Quirkstyle
Fashion elegance, oddities, styles, and cool garments.
tatterdemalion, froufrou, gingham, argyle, corset, hoop skirt, pantaloons, bloomers, jaunty, seersucker, twill, ganguro and 126 more...
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Wharton, Edith. Age of Innocence. 1920
A list of difficult words for L2-12 learners.
Faust, erection, metropolitan, splendor, shabby, conservatives, cherished, inconvenient, clung, acoustics, coupe, scramble and 261 more...
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dann's words
just some nice words that i like.
beamish, snark, sundry, contrariwise, salsify, cephalopod, omphaloskepsis, grok, resistentialism, peristerophobia, aglet, ferrule and 125 more...
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G & G
GRE , GMAT , TOEFL , IELTS , SAT 。。。
alphabet soup, vernacular, aberrant, abeyance, abet, recant, contrite, reiterate, patois, skew, senate, deliberative and 179 more...
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...another list...
I've no idea where I got this page full of words, but whatever it is, I want to find it again. May have duplicate words from other lists.
bicameral, aphelion, dirigible, parhelion, flocculus, vernier, corticate, oxalis, pandanus, calabash, plumbago, jonquil and 217 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Whales of Wales
a course of Jimmy Wales....hoppestere....and all the tales
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random
words I read but don't know
nascent, proxy, desultory, charlatan, churlish, emaciated, gaudy, shill, lurid, frisson, marauding, plunder and 610 more...
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Baby, It's Cold Outside!
Do as your mom says and put on a jacket.
frock coat, doublet, reefer, cutaway, morning coat, tailcoat, dinner jacket, smoking jacket, juste-au-corps, jerkin, basque, spencer and 134 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for doublet.

bilby In lapidary it's a gem with some kind of overlay, ie. two pieces sandwiched together. Clear quartz on top of a piece of opal, for example, can make the opal appear larger and brighter than it actually is. Oct 25, 2008
sarra A curious linguistic term relating to words which, sharing an etymological root, have entered a language by two different routes. Some examples: fire/pyre, warden/guardian, secure/sure.
Wikipedia link
I've not yet run back over them, but some of the rejections from my etymological curiosities list are, I think, doublets. Oct 24, 2008